How Eating Too Much Sugar as a Child Impacts You for Life
Kids today consume far more sugar than recommended, but the effects don’t stop in childhood. New research reveals surprising ways early sugar exposure shapes long-term health.
Parents have long known too much sugar can harm their child’s health, but a growing body of research reveals just how much damage it can do. A recent study in the journal Science found the dangers continue well into adulthood, with high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes more common in adults who were exposed to increased added sugars early in life. The results of this study and others make clear the sweet spot for sugar is well below what many kids currently consume.
While too much sugar harms adults too, it appears to be especially problematic at an age when food preferences are forming. “If you were exposed to sweet foods early in life, it’s likely that you’re going to prefer them throughout your life more than someone who was not,” says Tadeja Gracner, a scientist at the University of Southern California, who coauthored the research.
Sugar naturally occurs in some foods like fruit, but it’s also often added during processing or preparation. Children in the U.S. certainly eat plenty of added sugar, consuming an average of 17 teaspoons of this a day (almost 300 calories).
This is well above the 10 percent of calories in added sugars recommended by dietary officials for children over age two, and far from the ideal of less than five percent of total calories the World Health Organization suggests. Ten percent translates to roughly 100 to 200 calories, depending on the age of the child. Children under two should eat no added sugar.
